Bedford and Lamrose. Two sides of the same river. Two sides of the same coin. One, an affluent metropolis teeming with industry and aspiration. The other, a cesspool of crime and vice. Both dirty, both begging for the match that will set this whole city on fire.

Bedford and Lamrose. Locals call this place Bedlam. It’s a fitting name.

Streets of Bedlam: A Savage World of Crime + Corruption ^[1] is equal parts neo-noir, pulp detective fiction, and a bit of the ol’ ultraviolence thrown into a cement mixer and poured on top a heap of nameless bodies no one will ever miss.

It’s a modern urban setting full of despicable people doing awful things in the name of God, money, politics, or to pay off old debts. The stories shine light on the dark places of the human heart but it’s about finding diamonds in the rough, about good people in bad situations. The heroes may have questionable means but they have good intentions.

Of course, you know what they say about good intentions.

The Game

Streets of Bedlam is a pen-and-paper roleplaying game in which you play characters with histories, who’ve done bad things, who may do a few more, but who have a code they stick to, fuzzy though it may be, that guides them through life and allows them to make a difference. Everybody in this town wants something but your characters are aiming higher than most and maybe, just maybe, they’ll do some good. At the very least, maybe they’ll stop some bad from happening.

Written and designed by critically-acclaimed game writer Jason L Blair, the man behind Little Fears, Streets of Bedlam will be built around the award-winning Savage Worlds ruleset published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group. This is the same ruleset that powers Deadlands: Reloaded, 50 Fathoms, and Rippers.

The corebook will include new character types such as Monster, Dogface, Regent, and Valkyrie, Edges such as Bulletproof and Heart of Gold, Hindrances such as Did Time with a Guy and Ticking Time Bomb, a new subsystem called Rep that can help you as much as hurt you, a plot point campaign called “The Things We Do For Money,” along with a full write-up and breakdown of the joint districts of Bedford and Lamrose, the areas colloquially known as Bedlam.

The corebook is slated to be a 192-pp 6×9 b&w softcover. With your assistance, it will be out in April 2012. Funds acquired through this Kickstarter ^[1] will go toward illustrations, covering print costs, promotional efforts, and getting future supplements up and running.

Read more about the Streets of Bedlam RPG at Kickstarter.com ^[1] and StreetsOfBedlam.com ^[2].